A guard of six fully armed men would stay with the aircraft through-out its journey. They had already gotten comfortable in the First Class area. Seats had already been made into beds and it was weird to see a machine gun, rocket launchers, and cases of ammo ready for use in the aisle of the very luxurious aircraft.
The Air Force pilots were waiting for him. They were handed their own satellite phone, and Carlos could guide them if weather was going to be an issue. Right now, the only weather issue was in Germany where it looked like a snow storm was blanketing the area north of the Alps. Carlos had several timed prints of satellite photos for them showing the last 24 hours of the storm’s movement.
Since they were heading straight into Ramstein, the runways were expected to be clear, but they had more than enough fuel to fly into Aviano, Italy if the weather closed the two central German bases. From there, the jumbo jet was to hand over the satellite phones for further distribution with the HC-130 which would arrive 12 hours later. Once the phones were distributed, more accurate weather conditions could be relayed to pilots from the bases they were flying into.
In the last 12 hours, Lee had worked on getting a dozen old fashioned military mobile radio beacons working again and had been waiting for parts to be brought in on the transporter. Many of the old military mobile beacons were in metal containers about three-feet square and two feet high, and could be moved around on a forklift with a small generator inside the unit as its power source. Much like a normal radio frequency, an aircraft’s radio could look for the beacon’s transmitting noise and then home in to the location where the beacon originated. These units were sent mostly into forward areas with dirt airstrips to bring in supplies. Due to the electrical outage, these simple and antiquated directional systems were the only choice available, and the 747 was about to be loaded with six of these units in her cargo hold.
The HC-130 bound for Hawaii and Japan would have another six aboard in an hour or two, and once these were distributed, any aircraft would be able to direct its auto pilot onto the homing beacon from up to 1,000 miles out.
Carlos and Lee were happy to finally see the 747 take off at mid-day on the eighth day, fully fueled but still very empty for such a large aircraft. She turned eastwards and headed out over the Atlantic for Europe and the Middle East. They realized that the massive aircraft, light on luggage, could bring back more than 750 troops at a time, and it would take at least 24 hours for every round trip.
General Allen called Carlos. It was 1:00 am in China, and an hour after the attack in Nanjing. He gave Carlos the good news: the attack had gone well. Mrs. Wang had showed them the right buildings, and thanks to her the Zedong Electronics headquarters was now a pile of broken rubble. He had also seen the lights in Nanjing go out.
Carlos told him that the whole of the rest of the world had gone dark, including North Korea, Iran, and even the entire area the General was flying out of several minutes after the actual attack time. There were several small areas of lights to his south, around a Shanghai airport and the city’s harbor area, he believed. He had seen a faint light of the fires in Nanjing on the screen a few minutes earlier, but had left to deliver the radios to the 747, which had just taken off for Ramstein.
“Carlos, ask Lee to use one of the satellite phones and call the red number. I want to see if that number is still operating,” instructed the general. Lee did, and after several seconds an engaged tone was heard by Carlos and he relayed the information. “I’ve been thinking about our upcoming attack,” continued the general. “Carlos, please hand Lee the phone.”
“Harrow, Mr. Allen Key,” said Lee into the phone.
“Hallo, Lee. Your wife is okay and asleep at the rear of the aircraft. I’m heading into Beijing and should be in the area in about an hour. I was thinking about these 747 aircraft. Where do you think Zedong Electronics has them stationed?”
“It can only be Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Mr. Allen Key. There are two airports in Shanghai, but Pudong is further out of the city and I would think that they have them all at this airport ready to carry the Red Guards into New York. There are two very faint lights in that area—the only ones left in the whole world.”
“How many aircraft does Air China own, Lee?” asked the General. “Civilian aircraft are not my specialty.”
“I don’t know for sure, but they must have a lot of the 747s like the Air China one that left a few minutes ago. Also, they have purchased some of the big new European ones in the last couple of years, Mr. Allen Key,” Lee replied.
“Thank you, Lee. Please hand me back to Carlos.” Lee did.
“Carlos, I want you to cancel that flight—the HC-130 flight into the Azores and then Turkey,” stated the general. “You still have the Marines at McGuire? The ones who arrived from North Carolina an hour or so ago? Also are there two Chinese-speaking pilots, Captains Wong and Chong? They were with Joe Patterson in JFK. I need to speak to the chief of the Marine detachment, Patterson, the two Chinese-speaking pilots, and the crew of the HC-130 immediately.”
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes, Pete,” replied Carlos.
Carlos gave orders to three men standing by, ready to help him at any point, and they ran off to go and get the personnel the general wanted. This gave the general, a pretty fast thinker in his old age, a few minutes to work out a beauty of a plan. Joe Patterson’s brave actions at JFK had given him a fantastic idea.
They were still waiting for Major Patterson and the two Chinese pilots when a soldier returned and told them that they would be several more minutes. Carlos told the soldier to go out to the aircraft and stand by. He also phoned General Allen back and told the general about Lee repairing the 12 mobile beacon units, and that six were already on their way to Europe and the Middle East. General Allen was ecstatic, and thanked Lee profusely for the idea. It made his day to know that a real plan was coming together in his absence and also, within a couple of days international flying could be made safer and easier for the pilots. Carlos then told him that a radio beacon was already operating at McGuire as of 20 minutes ago, gave him the frequency, and told him that there were still another three they were working on. The general reckoned that there must be dozens of them in Europe, and told Lee to get several of the necessary parts loaded with the Air Force engineers going to Hawaii and Japan. Lee told him that he could have another two ready within the hour, and the general ordered him to get them placed into the HC-130 he was about to have the meeting about.
“Good day, gentlemen,” the general started, as Carlos put the phone on speaker 10 minutes later, once everybody had arrived from different places on the large base. “First of all Marine Lieutenant Smith, well done down in North Carolina! You guys did a fantastic job and I have an even more exciting mission for you. Major Patterson, well done again. Captains Wong and Chong, you are to be commended. Actually all of you will be recommended for a promotion once we have won this thing. A luncheon with the president is certainly in the cards in the not too distant future. Lieutenant Smith, can you get 24 parachutes from your base in North Carolina, and are you all parachute-trained for low-level insurgence?”
“My entire platoon is well-trained, sir, and yes we can get chutes at Camp Lejeune,” the lieutenant replied.